Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Lennon Courtney described their last collection as "a truly accessible collection for busy women who understand and love fashion but don’t want to be slaves to it." This could easily be applied to their latest collection, as well. It's easy chic. It's timeless but not old-fashioned. These are tailored pieces that are distinctly modern but will age well. And while it might seem overwhelmingly sophisticated and polished at first glance, even a Queen of Everything Oversized like myself can find pieces to work. My Lennon Courtney duster jacket is probably my favourite piece in my whole wardrobe now. The AW14 collection features the colours I love best for this time of year - burgundy, camel, grey, navy and black - as well as some surprising pops of brighter shades. I especially love the combination of black and navy: Tim Gunn once said it was okay, I've been saying it and doing it for years and now Lennon Courtney clearly agree! It's a super-elegant pairing. (Spread the word that this is not a faux-pas but a fo-sho.)The brand is always about its attention to detail as when you're doing something relatively simple and restrained, you need to be able to make it special. And, boy, do they! I'm all about the fabric choices, the lovely necklines and the beautiful seaming.Particular faves from the collection are the uber-soft grey jumper, the sporty-tailored grey crop top, the navy coat and the wool tee.

Check out their site as well as my shots from their store and images of my picks below!

Monday, 29 September 2014

Kling is a little shop located in the Italian Quarter in Dublin's city centre. In Spain, there are loads of them and it's a well-established brand but here it's a shop lots of people have walked by but never been inside. You might know it as the shop with the fence out front. You may have made a mental note to pop in next time you're going by.

I'm here to say, you definitely should. Not only are they lovely (srsly) but the clothes are adorable. They're also somewhat limited which is a bit of a relief. Much as we all love Primark, it's nice to know every Tom, Dick and Harry won't be wearing the same thing as you!

The AW14 collection (technically just an 'A' collection as they have four a year) features some of their signature styles of garments including sweet jumpers and collared dresses as well as super-cute accessories like pop-art bags that dreams are made of. Have a gawk at the images below and check out my picks of my favourites of the things in store!

What do you guys think? Trop cute, right?

If you're interested, check Kling out here and pop in store if you get a chance! Thanks to the guys for having me and hey to all the other bloggers I met that night!

Last Wednesday morning, between putting the finishing touches to my dissertation and going to work, I headed along to the MICRO Nail press day. Slightly frazzled and brain-fried and without a scrap of makeup, I was given a lovely welcome by the team and then introduced to Marie Staunton, spokeswoman for the product, No biggie, just a supermodel...telling me stories about hanging with the other nineties Supers...

From the same people as the MICRO Pedi, of which I'm a fan, the MICRO Nail offers the look of a manicure without the effort. Compact and sleek, off-setting the powder pink colour to avoid being overly twee, it files and buffs the nails perfectly with one attachment and shines them with another so your nails look like they have polish, when they don't. This is not only great for those who can't wear polish like gardening enthusiasts and horticulturists like Marie, nurses etc but also for those as lazy as me, as the effects last two weeks. Furthermore, it acts as a primer for polish if you want to apply it on top.

Having finally gotten a chance to try it out over the weekend, I can say that it does, indeed work. At €49.99, it might seem expensive but if you're into getting your mitts seen to on the reg, it's actually pretty cost effective as the full kit should last you up to three months...that's a lot of manicures-worth for under fifty quid. If you wanna check it out for yourself, it can be purchased from micronail.ie and Boots.

**Bonus: Unlike with the MICRO Pedi, batteries are included. It's like all those Christmas mornings where someone forgot to buy batteries for your new toy never happened.**

Sunday, 28 September 2014

Last, I gave you the music that maps where I am now as a person and taste-wise. Now, as part two of this special playlist, I present the songs and bands that made me who I am, the songs I listened to obsessively over and over again, the people who helped me through that terrible test in life...being a teen.

Tuesday, 23 September 2014

Playlist XX is special; it marks twenty times that I've shared this part of myself with you guys. It marks twenty times I've gotten to squee over the music I'm loving with a much wider audience than my group of friends. And I think that's pretty darn cool.

So, to mark the occasion, this playlist will be coming in two parts. Part I is the music that represents where my taste has evolved to whereas Part II will showcase where I've come from.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

And to end on this for now because I'm writing my thesis and I love Sailor Moon and the lyics are awesome (srsly, google a translation)!

Saturday, 20 September 2014

I bring a camera and notebook everywhere I go - I have legit nightmares about missing out on a good idea or phrase or opportunity - so I take photographs and write a little pretty much every day. And this is without considering Instagram or anything else (i.e. the occasional tumblr selfie gif). To illustrate my attitude towards taking photographs, have this journal entry:

My heart was pounding in my ears. And this is not a lazy, cliché use of this turn of phrase to describe the feeling - for the first time in my life, it was truly an accurate description of the sensation. It hurt. That's how strong the feeling was. My sides were cramping and my legs burned and splintered from the harsh slap of shoes not designed for running against unforgiving pavement. I think it was the panic, the need mixed with the physical exertion that made it manifest so but all I knew was I could not miss my train. Suddenly, the clouds that had lingered all Sunday morning, cleared and most beautiful early light glinted on the canal. I stopped so sharply that I startled an old woman across the road, the only person about on a sleepy weekend. The train was forgotten. I could not miss this light.Quickly, I wrestled my camera from my bag...
I did actually make the train on time in the end.
But, as is now apparent, my priorities are screwed and I become so enamoured with light and shade that I need to capture them - though cameras never do fully.
As I'm always taking photos, I always assume my semi-regular photo posts will be an easy thing to pop up on the blog when I'm low on time. But this is never the case. I rarely put them up for this reason, to begin with. Normally, it's because I'm excited to show the photos to other humans so I'll schedule a few posts for a busy week ahead and then decide to actually immediately publish the images. Or, if I am being strong and going with the plan to post when time is low, I'll go to do so and remember putting the right words along with them is agonising and decide to spend hours rearranging them perfectly on the page.
And let's not even talk about how long it takes to choose the images in the first place - at last count there were over 20,000 photographs on my laptop.